Ousted Hemlock workers forge on in Clarksville after losing jobs

11:02 AM,
Mar. 24, 2013

Written by

Jimmy Settle | The Leaf-Chronicle

CLARKSVILLE, TENN. - The last place Keith Sanford expected to find himself this spring was on the unemployment line.

This was supposed to be the year Hemlock Semiconductor began mass-producing polycrystalline silicon from its new $1.2 billion Clarksville plant. Instead, 2013 saw the company instituting a mass and permanent layoff of close to 300 people it had just hired in Clarksville - a move that shocked not just the workers themselves, but all of Middle Tennessee, if not the world.